Goodbye to You
by warinbabylon
Summary: Just a small non-plot thought fic about Tegan in her mid-fifties and the thoughts that might just cross her mind. It has nothing to do with any other fic of mine.


Title: Goodbye to You  
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, the TARDIS or anything else. I'm just mostly bored and write to save my sanity. I make no money from this. Also, the song: Goodbye to You by Michelle Branch is referenced here, but the lyrics really aren't shown.

Authors Notes: Someone asked me to write a small thought fic. And I heard this song and that's the end of that. I do have a plot fic brewing somewhere around here. Feedback is welcome. Flames are used to make smores. Don't have to read it if you don't want to.

**

How could a bloody song bring it all back?

It wasn't that she hadn't thought of him since then, but it was like a scabbed over knee scrape; you simply ignored it. It was just that she simply ignored the pain that would creep into her mind at odd times. Like a bad curry dish from a fourth rate Indian restaurant, the gnawing feeling would enter her stomach. Her mind would whirl and her throat would ache like there was a lump of her life fighting for existence through it. But, she would ignore it as best she could. There simply wasn't anything else she could do.

When she had first left, the pain would wake her up at night. It would make her sit up in bed, gasping for breath, grasping at the sheets, and soaked in sweat. At the time, she attributed it to the intense predilection her friends had had for finding the End of all Ends every time they had stepped from their home into a new world. As the years went by and her waking episodes became fewer and less intense, she eased into her new life famously. She found that it wasn't pain she was remembering or fear she was re-acquainting with, but rather almost the burn of regret. But, logically, she had had a talk with her conscience and in no uncertain terms, told herself that to regret getting a life back was silly. Just bloody, crazy silly.

She had had boyfriends since, men in her life for as little as a night and as long as years, but nothing had stuck and over time she had found that she liked being alone. She loved the freedom to come and go, explore, travel and work in peace and understood that she could like or even love who she chose. It was only the commitment that would stifle her life. And so she lived without it. 

She was respected by her co-workers, liked for her artwork, loved for her personality and as time went on and years became decades, the memory of an abandoned warehouse at the docks faded. Life continued much as it could have from the beginning. 

But here she was: a fifty-something woman on her way to an auction to meet friends, pulling her car off to the side of the road because, suddenly, her life seemed a hoax. Everything became surreal. She couldn't be sure if she was real or not, and had to convince herself that her hands were indeed wrapped about her steering wheel. She looked to them to acknowledge them: red nail tipped, dainty, artist's hands that they were.

"Rabbits," she growled. "Get ahold of yourself, Tegan-girl."

But she couldn't get her hands to start the car again.

As horns blared and buzzed past her and the rain pattered against the windshield, she sat there on the shoulder of the road. She stared at the rivulets of water that coursed down the glass. The world slowly became like a watercolor left too long in the rain, pooling and drenching her vision in uncertainty.

That blasted song continued to play. It was a young girl, American, singing about saying goodbye. Saying that he was the one thing she had tried to hold on to. She sang about searching away, hearing words but not understanding them, starting all over again after three years of pretending. It was all like her life had beenlike Wendy taken by Peter Pan to Never Never Land.

The lump in her throat grew and she leaned her head down to the steering wheel. She had never truly said good-bye, she finally admitted. Not in her heart where it mattered most. Somewhere inside of her, she was still the impressionable twenty-three year old stewardess waiting for her ride to come back. She had said the words, but not meant them.

She had simply tried to forget him, forget them, and forget that time in her life. 

The song ended and was replaced by a man crooning. But the words stayed with her.

She had to say good-bye. And to do that, she had to remember. Remember it all.

Her hands shook, her eyes flooded and as she sat there, a lonely motorist in the middle of an afternoon downpour, she did. 

After a time, the sun seemed to peak between the angry clouds over head and the rain slowed. Her face was streaked with mascara tinged tears, but for once in her life, she didn't care. She finally leaned back into the seat and tearily smiled at the sun as it peered through her rain covered window.

"I did miss you, Doctor. I still do. But I had to leave. I think you understood that better than I did, but you knew that I would sweep this all under the rug, didn't you? Bloody, stupid girl, that Tegan. Would rather run ram-shod through her life, bowling over opposition rather than admit that that opposition even existed. But I think you forgave me. I hope you did."

She sighed and rolled her head back. 

"Now, I have to forgive myself, I suppose. I was a girl in love with romance, life and you. After all, you embodied the lot of it. And I walked away from it. It was needed and I always did, do," she emphasized, "the right thing."

Her hand fell to the key and turned to start the engine.

"Good-bye to you, I suppose, Doctor. And I guess I'll embrace that lost girl inside of me. It's time she came home, don't you think?"


End file.
